Oh, the internet. That glorious black hole where productivity goes to die and attention spans are sacrificed like goats to the algorithmic gods. Every day, we doomscroll our way into existential despair while being served ads for weighted blankets and meditation apps we’ll never open. And then, amid the chaos, some brave souls dare to whisper the unspeakable: log off, read a book, connect IRL. Cue the collective gasp from TikTok zombies and Twitter warriors alike.
Mark Armstrong, in his Nieman Storyboard piece, does what few dare to do anymore: he advocates for shutting the laptop, putting the phone on airplane mode (if you can remember how), and — wait for it — meeting actual human beings. In person. The horror!
Let’s unpack this radical idea with the grace of a bull in a China shop.
Step Away from the Glowstick of Doom
We all know the drill. You open your phone to check one notification and — bam — it’s three hours later, you’re in a Reddit rabbit hole about how pigeons are government drones, and you’ve forgotten why you exist. Armstrong reminds us that the internet, while a wonderful dumpster fire of memes and misinformation, is not where deep thinking happens. Reading online is like trying to drink a fine wine through a fire hose.
Books, on the other hand? They’re slow, they’re patient, and they don’t ping you every five seconds with a text from “Mom” asking if you’ve “figured out your life yet.” Books demand focus, and in return, they give you something the internet can’t: your brain cells back.
Authors: The Masochists We Owe Everything To
Armstrong gushes about the authors he’s met recently — Brendan O’Meara, Maggie Mertens, Lawrence Burney, Carrie R. Moore — and frankly, he’s right to. Writing a book in 2025 is the literary equivalent of fighting a dragon with a spork. You’re up against TikTok attention spans, AI-generated drivel, and publishers who think marketing means “posting a sad tweet at 2 a.m.”
These authors not only wrote books, they dared to read from them in public, IRL. Imagine standing on a stage knowing half your audience’s inner monologue is screaming, “I could be watching Netflix right now.” That takes guts.
And yet, they do it. Why? Because books still matter. They still spark connection. They still make you think — not just about plot twists, but about life, mortality, and why your cat is staring at you like it knows something you don’t.
Mallary Tenore Tarpley & The Gospel of Cutting Your Darlings
Enter Mallary Tenore Tarpley, who reminds writers everywhere that not everything you write is precious. Yes, that means even the 10,000 words you bled onto the page at 3 a.m. while listening to Lana Del Rey on loop. Sometimes, the best writing happens not in what you keep, but in what you cut.
She interviewed other writers who echoed this wisdom. Shoshana Walter even said writing a book taught her to be “less precious” about what she’s written. Translation: kill your darlings, folks. The delete key is your friend. The outtakes? They’re not wasted — they’re compost. They’ll fertilize better writing later.
Story Outtakes: The Netflix Deleted Scenes of Journalism
The article goes on to romanticize the outtakes — the juicy bits that don’t make the final cut. Journalists apparently hoard these like dragon gold, knowing one day they might use them in another story, or at least brag about them at the next Society for Features Journalism conference.
Yes, the SFJ conference is back, baby! Post-pandemic, journalists get to leave their Zoom rectangles and gather in Phoenix this November to bask in the glory of Eli Saslow and Lane DeGregory. Imagine the networking! The panels! The cheap coffee! The collective sigh of relief that comes with realizing your peers also suffer from deadline-induced night terrors.
Positionality, Bias, and the Eternal Navel-Gazing of Writers
Erika Hayasaki gets a nod for her piece on “positionality” — the idea that journalists should consider how their own experiences shape the stories they tell. Groundbreaking, right? Spoiler: every writer ever has been biased. That’s what makes their work human. But fine, let’s all write essays about how growing up eating Pop-Tarts influenced our approach to investigative reporting.
At least this reflection might make us aware enough to not accidentally turn every article into a veiled memoir about our failed relationships. (Looking at you, personal essayists.)
Trans Journalists, Public Records, and Other Real Talk
The links of note included in the article also tackle serious topics: safety for trans journalists, the Kafkaesque nightmare of requesting public records, and the overall difficulty of doing journalism when the world would rather you just post clickbait. These are vital discussions, and they prove that while journalists love to complain (and oh, we do), we also fight like hell to tell the stories that matter.
Why IRL Matters (Even for Introverts Who’d Rather Die)
Here’s where Armstrong hits the nail on the head. Meeting people IRL — at book readings, conferences, or even just at a coffee shop — is how we remember that the world isn’t just pixels. Real conversations can’t be “muted.” You can’t swipe left on an awkward silence. You have to sit in it, breathe it, and maybe even learn something from it.
Books facilitate that. They bring strangers into shared spaces, create moments of connection that no amount of retweets can replicate. They remind us we’re more than our online avatars.
So, Log Off Already (But Finish Reading This First)
Armstrong’s message is clear: put down the phone, pick up a book, and talk to a real human. Go to that reading. Attend that conference. Hell, start a book club and argue passionately about whether the ending was brilliant or trash. Just do something that involves eye contact and not an emoji reaction.
Because at the end of the day, no one’s going to remember your top-performing tweet. But they might remember the time you shared a dog-eared copy of your favorite book, IRL, over a cup of bad conference coffee.
Final Snarky Take
We live in a world where people brag about “touching grass” like it’s a rare achievement. Meanwhile, books sit patiently on shelves, waiting for us to remember they exist. Authors sweat blood to create them, journalists sweat bullets to report stories, and readers? Well, readers just have to turn off Netflix and turn on their brains.
So yes, log off. Read a book. Connect IRL. And maybe, just maybe, stop acting like human interaction is some radical new trend.